Government ‘spends 600,000 on Habsburg website’
The Austrian government has come under fire for allegedly spending more than half a million Euros on a website documenting the history of the Habsburg family.Austrian newspapers report today (Thurs) that the coalition of Social Democrats (SPÖ) and Peoples Party (ÖVP) invested 600,000 Euros in the creation of the homepage www.habsburger.net which does not feature an English version yet.The government decided to help establish a “virtual museum” about the once ruling monarchs after Vienna officials and museums failed to come to an agreement over setting up a museum somewhere in the city.Already existing institutions reportedly made clear they would not lend objects of their stock for the planned museum.Critics of the 2,000-page online project have expressed doubts since the Habsburg familys history is well documented by encyclopaedias and free online information services such as Wikipedia.